June 11, 2013

The Voice asked a spokesman for Mayor Michael Bloomberg for a comment on the violent encounter between 79th Precinct police and three young gay men, which left one of the men with stitches, bruised ribs, and a black eye, and received no response.

Evidently, the matter is not on the mayor’s agenda.

Meanwhile, today [Tuesday] at 2 p.m., activist groups, and perhaps some politicians, will hold a news conference/protest to denounce the incident outside police headquarters across from City Hall.

In short, the three civilians, all in their twenties, were walking past the 79th Precinct stationhouse at 4 a.m. on June 2, when an officer accused one of them, Josh Williams, of urinating on the building. He denied it. The officer grabbed Williams, thumped him against a car hood, pepper-sprayed him, threw him against a fence, and called in other cops, who pepper-sprayed him again and slammed him face-first into the sidewalk. Williams was arrested for resisting arrest, though witnesses and a video suggest he did not resist, nor was their initial grounds for an arrest.

His friends, Tony Maenza and Ben Collins, were also arrested, and it appears only after cops learned of the videotape.